


a quiet daybreak

by SilentRabbitEars



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Families of Choice, Freedom Fighters, Friendship, It's a long way to Ba Sing Se, Jet-centric, Smellerbee and Longshot would never leave Jet let's be honest here, arguably not wholesome but I don't think that discourse has made it here (yet), just a lil bit, mild abandonment issues, traumatized teenagers pretending to be okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 16:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19360327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentRabbitEars/pseuds/SilentRabbitEars
Summary: You live longer when you’re surrounded by people who care if you live or die.





	a quiet daybreak

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know what this is, or what it’ll be, but I re-watched all three seasons of atla, devoured the first 15 pages of fic, and got smacked in the face with this. Am I kind of projecting my feelings of anxiety and stress about my place in life onto a fictional character? Sure! That’s what fanfic is for baby. *finger guns*
> 
> Also, I know this is a children’s show, and when I started watching it in 2006 I would have been deeply disturbed if people had actually died on screen. But it’s 2019, and 13 years later, I’m old* (and so, I presume, are you, if you’re on AO3) and I’m the one writing this fic. I’m the boss here, and I say: Everyone has killed someone, except Aang (non-Avatar state with the ocean spirit Aang that is). The Freedom Fighters killed Fire Nation soldiers. Sokka killed Fire Nation soldiers. Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors killed Fire Nation soldiers. Toph killed Fire Nation soldiers. Katara killed Fire Nation soldiers. Zuko killed a bit of everybody. Iroh wept because children shouldn’t have to fight and kill to survive. There’s a difference in killing combatants and soldiers though, and that’s where the Gaang drew the line here.
> 
> *not that old in the grand scheme of things

A very, very small part of Jet is tired of being in charge, tired of being responsible for other people. So what if he’d maybe like someone else to make decisions for a bit? Not just anyone and not about anything important, mind you. Just…stupid shit, like making the final decisions on what to have for dinner and what to save for tomorrow, or how dirty is too dirty when it comes to their clothes. He’s not a tyrant or a dictator or anything, but Smellerbee and Longshot have been his responsibility for so long. Even the decisions they make on their own feel like echoes of decisions he’s already made, and anytime there’s a debate between them (rare enough but still) he’s the one with the final call. It didn’t seem to matter so much back in the forest, oddly enough. But here, in the middle of nowhere, on the way to Ba Sing Se, he doesn’t really feel the sense of rightness in making decisions like he used to. He just feels tired and old. And abandoned. 

But Smellerbee and Longshot didn’t abandon him. And honestly, he’s pretty sure at least some of the other freedom fighters will find their way back to him. The world is cruel and terrible, and after being out in it, the others will understand him more, understand why he made the decisions he did. And they’ll meet again. It’ll be different – nothing could ever be the same as it was – but it would be close enough, close enough to the family they’d all built for themselves after losing so much. You live longer when you’re surrounded by people who care if you live or die. He’ll find his Freedom Fighters again – he’s positive some of them had the same idea and are headed to Ba Sing Se. And it’s not like there’s Fire Nation or collaborators to fight or kill there, so even just his presence would be proof of how much he’d changed. They would come back to him. And if not, well, there was a war on. There’d probably be plenty of abandoned children looking for a family. Not that Jet could give them that now, he thought bitterly as he watched Longshot literally count out rice for dinner. They couldn’t take care of anyone else right now; and no one who could take care of themselves wouldn’t want to bother with a bunch of half-starved teenagers with brittle smiles. Not for more than a few days anyway. 

A log shifts on the fire and Jet breaks out of his thoughts. It’s no good to think about the future when you’re barely surviving the present, he notes glumly. Longshot is carefully sorting what berries and nuts they’ve scavenged into the three bowls they’ve managed to keep from breaking. Jet resigns himself to falling asleep with a growling stomach again.

* * *

Jet can’t sleep. Jet can never sleep these days.

* * *

Smellerbee is snoring. She’s curled around his left side, under the bulk of the blankets. There’s a tree on his other side, the bark catching on the blankets. Longshot is sitting up on the other side of Smellerbee, facing the darkness. They’d given up on sleeping separately not long after they’d left Gaipan. It was cold at night, and none of them had ever felt particularly safe sleeping on the ground, but you couldn’t exactly climb up into a tree every night. 

In a few hours, when the moon’s overhead, Longshot will wake up Smellerbee and they’ll switch places. It’s Jet’s turn for a full night of sleep. And he can’t sleep. He tries to slow his breathing and clear his mind. Lying here in the dark and resting is better than nothing. He knows from experience that getting up and trying to take over the watch won’t do him any good. If he lies here long enough, he’ll eventually fall asleep, if only for an hour or two. Smellerbee snorts and shifts, wedging her head more firmly under his chin and shoving her elbow into his gut. Jet opens his eyes and looks up at the stars through the canopy of leaves above them, biting back a sigh.

* * *

Most of their supplies are gone now. And this far into the Earth kingdom there isn’t much Fire Nation to take more from either. They’re all uneasy about stealing from their own people, especially since most villages they pass through are inhabited by people with not much more than they have. Every few weeks, they’ll hit a larger town, one that has work for them, or at least for Jet. Even though Longshot and Smellerbee are strong, they still look like children. They still are children, Jet corrects himself, and people are hesitant to put them towards hard labor, which is most of what the work is. A lot of men are gone now, to the army. Jet sometimes wonders if he should follow. But he never mentions it out loud. He doesn’t think he’d do well with the hierarchy anyways. These towns also have wealthier people, with nice houses and clothes, nice enough that Jet doesn’t feel particularly bad about liberating a few bags of food from their stores. Longshot and Smellerbee can help with that, even if they won’t be hired to do the other work. 

They also help with what few Fire Nation platoons there are this deep in Earth Kingdom. But they’re all acutely aware that the three of them don’t have the same power has the Freedom Fighters used to have. And it’s different, fighting in strange places instead of their forest. Fortunately, they’ve only run into the Fire Nation twice; each time had ended in a strategic for them, with enough soldiers dead or injured that they wouldn’t be followed. There are plenty of patrols from the Earth Kingdom Army that aren’t that different from the Fire Nation though, Jet has slowly, unwillingly, realized. 

It is different though. It is. The Fire Nation is a foreign invader, an oppressive force. The Earth Kingdom soldiers are their own people, meant to have control. Meant to protect. It’s different. It is. 

It’s worse, a quiet voice in the back of Jet’s head whispers. They’re doing this to their own people, their own lands. It’s worse. He does his best to ignore the voice.

* * *

Ba Sing Se is still weeks away, maybe months. Jet’s not sure, and neither is Smellerbee. The map they’ve got is one from the fire nation – the distances per day marked out are meant for soldiers, with mounts and tanks, not three teenagers. It probably doesn’t help that every time they hit one of the larger towns they stay for a week or so, extending their trip much longer than it had to be. But they need the supplies from those towns, and the money Jet could earn. It doesn’t hurt to socialize more either. It’s similar enough to the little civilization they re-created from experience, necessity, and half-remembered rules and manners out in their own tree top village. But it’s still different enough that it’ll sometimes put Jet’s teeth on edge. He’s not use to adults that aren’t the enemy, and he’s not use to rules that he hasn’t made. But he has to get used to it. Ba Sing Se is nothing but city, which he imagines will be full of rules. And he’s not stupid enough to think he’ll be any sort of special there. Better get used to the sneers and uncaringness of people out in the boondocks now, rather than later, when it might matter more if he or Smellerbee knifes someone in a fit of rage. Not that either of them will. These are their people, as indifferent to the suffering of strangers as they are.

* * *

“Give it back!”

Silence. Jet hides a smile as he keeps washing the dirt off the mushrooms they had found earlier.

“You’re being an asshole.” Smellerbee aims a kick at Longshot. He dances out of the way. “Aarrghhhh!” She tackles him, head butting into his gut, and as Longshot falls, he twists around and tosses the comb he’d been holding over his head to Jet. He sets it aside, and bites his lip as Smellerbee pummels Longshot into the dirt as he playfully whacks at her shoulder. They’re cute – reminding him of goat-puppies, tussling and roughhousing, as if they don’t know how to maim and kill. 

Jet pulls a cooking knife out and starts slicing the mushrooms. Some he’ll cook, and the rest he’ll dry. It’ll be good to have them later, especially since it looks like that’ll be hitting the more arid edge of the desert in the near future. He keeps an eye on the two of them rolling around in the dirt. They’re not going to hurt each other, or at least he doesn’t think so, but. Jet’s not an idiot. He knows why when the Freedom Fighters splintered, they stuck together. He’s still a little murky on why they stuck with him when everyone else left, but he knows why they stuck together. When it’d been two weeks of just the three of them, they’d stopped in a village, and Longshot had been watching a courting couple appraisingly, Jet had thought about saying something. What, he didn’t have a clue. They knew the facts of life as well as he did. (They knew the facts of life _exactly_ as well as he did because he’d told them, told all his freedom fighters when he thought it was time for them to know, what he knew. And what he knew was the exact same spiel he’d been given by the oldest women he’d ever seen years ago. He’d gone to an herbalist further inland, arguably looking for more cloth and cooking pans, but really looking for answers when he’d come to the realization that there were more differences to becoming an adult than just getting bigger. It had been objectively terrible, but until fairly recently, she’d been the only person whose pity he hadn’t felt insulted by.) And as far as actual romance or affection went, they probably had already figured out more than him, at least in regards to each other. Longshot wasn’t Jet, and Smellerbee wasn’t one of the young women who smiled and flirted over market stalls. And because Jet hadn’t yet figured out a way that wasn’t immediately mortifying to say that a baby was the last thing they needed, he just hadn’t said anything. He figured they knew that. They weren’t stupid either. And really, they were both too young to even be thinking about those things, Jet thought, steadfastly ignoring how old _he’d_ been when he’d started thinking about sex. 

Smellerbee rolls off Longshot in triumph and marches over to Jet, snatching up her comb. “Thank you, Jet, for keeping this safe for me.” She sniffs. Jet grins.

“Sure thing, Smellerbee. You know I’ve always got your back.” Longshot’s silence exuded doubt and amusement at Jet’s words. He’s propped himself up on his elbows from where he was sprawled out. Smellerbee didn’t even glance over.

“You stay there, you asshole. Neither me or Jet want to talk to you right now!” Longshot grins, something he really only did for Smellerbee. 

“Yeah, stay over there you jerk.” Jet didn’t bother to hide the smile in his voice. Longshot twitched his nose and collapsed back in the dirt. Jet suspected he’d be laughing, if he ever made a noise.

* * *

The thing about having your village burned down, all your family slaughtered, and then growing up in a forest surrounded by other children while pretending desperately to be an adult, was that you lacked certain things you needed to survive outside said forest. Namely, any kind of identification. Maybe if any of them had been older when their lives had been shattered, they’d have thought to run to the chest, or office, or wherever, and grab the official proof of their existence before it burned up with the rest of their lives. None of them had though. 

Some farmers and merchants might be willing to overlook the lack of papers for a few days of work, but inns usually weren’t. Any sort of official transport, be it a guide or a ostrich-horse seller, wasn’t. And for some of the towns with walls and guards, Smellerbee had had to cry to get them entry. And none of them thought her tears or Jet’s smile would get them into Ba Sing Se. They needed official papers. 

There was barely enough money for food, so bribing an official or paying a forger was out of the question. Stealing them was their only option. But stealing the identity from a fellow refugee or an impoverished farmer didn’t sit well with any of them. And if they went too far up the social ladder, it’d be obvious that they weren’t who they claimed to be. They’d never pass as a Yumsoon-Han or a Pang, so the middle class it’d have to be. Rich enough to be able to get themselves more papers, but not well known enough to make a guard laugh when they tried to get in a town. Although, Jet had his doubts about them passing as middle class too. But that was a problem for the future them. A lot of things were problems for the future them.

“One per town is more logical, with less risk of getting caught, and whatever family it is would only have to replace one set of papers, instead of thr–”

“But! If we steal from the same town and same family, it’d make more sense for us to be traveling together. And we could be a family, at least on paper. They wouldn’t split us up!”

“So we stick a family with having to get three sets of replacement papers then? Besides, it’ll take forever to find one that has two boys and a girl close to our ages. And honestly, we don’t look that much like siblings.”

“We could be cousins, or have different mothers or something!”

Jet sighed. Longshot inclined his head.

“See! Longshot thinks me and you could pass as brother and sister! We’ve got the hair! He can be a cousin or a neighbor!” 

“What, you don’t want Longshot to be your brother too? – OW!”

Smellerbee glared at him. “Don’t be a jerk, Jet. I know you want to be a family too. It’ll be easier to travel too.” 

“We’re already a family, in all the ways that count. We don’t need papers to say that.” Smellerbee’s face softened and Longshot carefully touched Jet’s arm. He suddenly felt very vulnerable. Surely he’d told them this already? They had to have known how he felt about them, about all of them, before this. Jet swallowed, and jerked his mind away from that train of thought. Smellerbee was right. It would be easier to travel as a family. “But fine, we can be a family on paper too.” Smellerbee beamed.

* * *

Finding a family that worked for them was just as hard as Jet had thought it would be. Not that Jet has much to do with it, for once. Every time they were in a town large enough to have possible marks, he’d be working most of the day with no time to scout out families. He’d set the criteria, but Smellerbee and Longshot would take care of it without him. And they did, much to Jet’s surprise. 

“Pack up and let’s go!” Smellerbee crowed as she and Longshot walk into the clearing where they’ve been staying the past few days. She was waving a cloth wrapped package around excitedly. Jet groaned. 

“Every part of my body hurts; I’ve been working since dawn. Did you have to steal the papers today?” 

Smellerbee pouted. “We weren’t going to waste the opportunity, Jet. You taught us better than that. They were in a safe, so we might have a bit of time before they notice the papers are gone?”

Jet sighed deeply and forced himself to sit up. He’d been lying on their blankets, contemplating the banality of employment before they’d come back. “No, we’d had better get a move on. No point in tempting fate. But tell me who we are now first.”

Smellerbee plopped down next to him and Longshot sat on the other side of her. She dug around bit and then passed over a birth record and passport to Jet. He squinted at the papers – Zhu Yunxiang, 19, Earth Kingdom Third Class passport. “Yunxiang, huh? Do I look 19?” 

Longshot tilted his head. Smellerbee cackled. Jet scowled. “Yeah, yeah, I’m tall and skinny, I know. Who are you?” Longshot passed over his papers. Liu Chuanli, 17, Earth Kingdom Third Class passport. “17? _You_ don’t look 17! That’s almost four years older than you are! At least I’m only two years off!” Smellerbee kept laughing. Jet poked her in the ribs. “And what about you then?”

“My own dear brother has forgotten my name? How dare you – ” Jet poked her again. “Oh, fine. Zhu Mingxia. I’m 13.” 

“Really? I’d have thought you’d want to be older, not younger.” 

“Beggars can’t be choosers, sadly. And it’s only 10 months,” she tapped the birth date. “And if you don’t like Yunxiang, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not like these are real – your name’s still Jet.”

Jet met Longshot’s eyes over Smellerbee’s head. She had joined too young to remember having a name before Smellerbee, but both he and Longshot knew the names their parents had given them. Longshot had even used his when he first joined the Freedom Fighters, until he realized that everyone else used names that the others picked out. Jet hadn’t used his name in almost a decade at this point. He wasn’t even sure he remembered the right characters for it. Jet had named himself, and then he’d named Smellerbee and Pipsqueak and a dozen others. It was just as likely that the names Smellerbee had stolen for them would become their real names, and in a few years, they would forget the names Jet gave, just like they were slowly forgetting the ones their parents gave. Jet felt a rolling uneasiness in his stomach at the thought. He shoved it down, and passed Longshot back his papers. 

“Good point, Smellerbee. It’s what’s in our hearts that’s real, not some pieces of paper.” He tucked his new passport into his shirt, and stretched, cracking his back. “How about we eat dinner before we leave?”

**Author's Note:**

> Will there be any more of this? idk idk. I’m got two more chapters vaguely planned out (ferry and Ba Sing Se), but I wrote this one over the course of a single day, so I have no idea if my brain will actually be able to sustain itself long enough to write more. If I’m being honest with myself, probably not. But you never know! 
> 
> (I’m marking it as complete because it can stand just fine on its own and also I always feel guilty looking at 1/?)


End file.
